The Sigla Blog

On Saturday night I went to one of the most interesting gigs of the year. Cocorosie are two sisters with extraordinary voices. Bianca sings like a cross between Billie Holiday and Stina Nordenstam while Sierra whoops operatically, raps and sings pop. Both are multi-instrumentalists and have created one of the most unique sounds I’ve heard in a long time. The songs are dark, funny, lonesome and tap in to the dark emotions of lust and loss. Bianca sounds a little like Anthony from Anthony and the Johnsons and it’s no surprise they covered one of his songs (’Fistful of Love’ I think) and he contributed vocals to ‘Beautiful Boyz’ on their album Noah’s Ark. It completely slipped past me this year, but I recognised some songs from their gorgeous debut Le Maison de Mon Reve. Most of the beats they used were improvised by a female human beatbox. It was an amazing gig and was understandably sold out. Their music is meloncholic and pensive but it was just so refreshing.

Afterwards, given the coldness of the night and the proximity, a pile of us headed upstairs to the Palace on Camden Street. They played the Pixies all night, seats aren’t an issue, you can play foosball and pool and it opens until 3am. What more could you want?

At kicking out time, the fun started. I had literally just walked outside only to be confronted by a young flower seller selling those tacky single stem roses. I reckon he was about 15 and was with another woman, and they were Romanian. He bumped in to me for a moment, but straight away, my bag (which was open as I was about to take my phone out) felt different. I checked and my wallet was gone. I immediately tapped him on the shoulder and asked for it back. He said he didn’t know what I was talking about and offered to let me search him. I didn’t want to invade someone’s space like that even if he had pinched my wallet. A friend who was with me also noticed he had in fact bumped in to me purposely and that my wallet instantly vanished.

Not wanting to get the police, I tried to reason with him. Keep the money: just give me back the wallet. The worst thing about having a wallet or bag stolen is not the money, it’s the endless round of getting photos taken, calling the bank, refilling out forms in the library, losing business cards etc. A few minutes later, we spotted him standing on the street with his family and I approached him again asking if he would consider returning the wallet.

Two different bouncers at The Palace told me that nine out of 10 of these flower sellers who operate at night are pickpockets and people have repeatedly brought it to their attention. So why do the staff allow them to linger outside if they know they are actively robbing their clientele? A friend told her flatmate that night what had happened and he told her that it’s common knowledge among the gardai that the flowers are a smokescreen for professional pickpockets.

I felt even worse because they were an immigrant family. I told the boy that I was happy he and his family were making a life in Ireland, but that a lot of people in this country don’t feel the same way about immigrants. By stealing from people, this family are doing a disservice to other immigrants who want to live and work here honestly and are faciliating a view held by anti-immigrant folk that immigrants are here to steal not just our jobs, but our wallets. I wished him well and hoped that his life in Ireland prospers but to remember that what goes around comes around. It didn’t ruin my night, but it made me feel weird; a bit uncomfortable and quite sad.

This morning, the story takes another bizarre twist. I got an email from a guy who has found the discarded wallet and says he will post it back to me. Thank goodness for Google it would seem.

On a completely different note, there was a very insightful documentary about Eric Morecambe on Channel 4 last night. It focused on his diaries, papers and dictaphone recordings to reveal an obsessive workaholic and a man who could never quite believe his success. In one of the taped conversations he mentions a quote from his grandad, which given the preceeding story, really struck a chord. The quote?

“Freedom is in your wallet”.